BOOK REVIEWS
H. Arnold Barton. A F o l k Divided: Homeland Swedes and Swedish
A m e r i c a n s , 1 8 4 0 - 1 9 4 0 Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1994. xv + 403pp.
H. Arnold Barton has established a deserved reputation as the
premier interpreter of the Swedish experience in the homeland and
abroad. A F o l k D i v i d e d . . . is the work of a mature scholar with a
demonstrated ability to master a large body of knowledge and
produce an incisive work of synthesis and interpretation. The present
book may be read as a study of mentality as well as social and
cultural history.
Professor Barton identifies and analyzes the concept of two
separate cultures; one that developed among Swedes in Sweden, and
one that took shape among Swedes in America. From the time of
separation these two cultures over time, from generation to genera­tion,
evolved in different directions. A recognition of ethnic cultures
as legitimate and meaningful expressions of a historical process is
essential to an understanding of a multicultural America. To be sure,
ethnicity may be regarded as a self-conscious and selective construct
of a common ethnic memory, and as such over a period of time
becomes a part of an assimilative strategy and the formation of a
distinct ethnic identity acceptable to the dominant cultural group; in
its final analysis ethnic cultures must thus consistently be approached
as a part of an American matrix where the homeland's modernization
does not constitute the norm against which these cultures are judged.
But the immigrants did not sever their connection with the
homeland; they had instead a need to justify their departure to
themselves and to those they left behind. Barton sees the dialogue
that ensued between homeland Swedes and Swedish Americans from
the early years of emigration in the 1840s and for a century of
overseas exodus thereafter as an assertion by Swedish Americans of
a rightful and unique place within the Swedish national community.
Some 1.2 million Swedes left for the United States during this period.
The extensive loss of citizens through a long period of emigration in
itself affected nearly every aspect of Swedish life. The opinions
expressed in the homeland toward the emigrated Swedes, in Barton's
view, influenced their adjustment and cultural development in the
57
new society. How a people divided by migration related and saw
each other while developing separate and ever more distant cultural
identities is a central focus of the study.
There is extensive documentation, but like most investigations
based on published or archival writing, it is mainly the observations
of an elite of journalists, clergymen, politicians, literary figures, and
academics-on both sides of the Atlantic that prevail. The immigrants
are viewed from the top, though this view is embellished with
reference to the more democratic America letters and evocative
quotations from ordinary Swedish Americans found in the writings
of observers. And, certainly, the transatlantic relationship and the
commentary changed through time; no consensus on basic issues
emerged, either in Sweden or in America, as the expressed opinions
were reflections of social class, cultural and political convictions, and
changing historical circumstances.
Barton begins with the Swedish imperial venture on the Delaware
River in 1638 as a prologue to the beginning of mass overseas
migration commencing in the 1840s. This new phenomenon created
astonishment and found both opponents and defenders; the unprece­dented
levels of the movement after the Civil War and the emergence
of a "Swedish America" with its complement of ethnic institutions
generated a painful focus on the social conditions at home that
produced it. Swedish visitors to the immigrant community on the
other hand were pleased to note the high regard in which their
former compatriots apparently were held, but might also be aware of
the personal cost of emigration in the heavy labor exacted in order to
succeed.
A Swedish-American identity evolved that in cultural terms owed
much to Sweden and in civic and political matters to America.
Swedish Americans' long-time loyalty to the Republican Party is an
example of the latter circumstance. The pioneer Swedish-American
newspaperman John Enander promoted the imagery and rhetoric of
the Old Norse heritage, which came to pervade Swedish cultural life
and provided a salient ethnic imagery for a persistent Swedish-Amer­ican
identity. Barton dwells on the attempts by a more self-confident
and culturally aware Sweden to stem the tide of emigration in the
early part of this century, in particular the report of the Swedish
Emigration Commission of 1913 and the influential concluding
volume by its director, Gustav Sundberg, on the Swedish national
character (Det svenska f o l k l y n n e t ) , which moves beyond economic
causative arguments in explaining emigration and discovers a
fundamental cause in the Swedish folk character: "an uncritical
admiration for what is foreign and exotic, lack of national sentiment,
58
envy toward his own countrymen, and feeling for nature rather than
for people." (159)
Swedish America reached its zenith during the two first decades
of this century, manifested in religious as well as secular cultural and
organizational efforts. The years between the two world wars initially
witnessed a new rally around Swedish-American interests following
the intolerant nativism during World War I, though the general
development was one of the cultural loss in the ethnic community.
Eloquent appeals for the preservation of the Swedish language were
of no avail. Professor Vilhelm Lundström might be right in assuming
that few Swedes knew or cared enough about cultural Swedish
America to feel very strongly about its passing, and, indeed,
demographic change led to Americanization as the Great Depression
undermined the basis for Swedish-American institutions. The
outward signs of a Swedish-American identity became less substan­tive
and more symbolic.
A F o l k D i v i d e d . . . is a remarkably innovative work on a Swedish
cultural presence in America, and the love-hate relationship between
Swedes and Swedish-Americans, as Barton defines it, with broad
application to all peoples divided by migration. But it is much more.
In its widest perspective it has universal relevance as a study of
America itself, which as a nation of immigrants symbolizes a move
toward modernization or "Americanization," if you will, in a world
that reluctantly is becoming increasingly one.
ODD S. LOVOLL
ST. OLAF COLLEGE
Ingvar Henricson & Hans Lindblad. Tur och retur A m e r i k a : Utvandrare
som forändrade Sverige (Stockholm, Sweden: Fischer & Co., 1995). 298
pages.
Hans Lindblad, a long-time member of the Swedish parliament,
is notable as the originator of the 150th anniversary celebration of
Swedish immigration to America, observed on both sides of the
Atlantic during 1996. Since Lindblad is an admirer of American
enterprise and a champion of grassroots movements in Sweden, it is
fitting that (with fellow Gävle resident Ingvar Henricson) he should
publish the present volume, a testimony to the close ties between
Sweden and the United States.
Rather than emphasizing Sweden's impact on the United States,
the authors concentrate on the important role played by Swedish
59

Click tabs to swap between content that is broken into logical sections.

All rights held by the Swedish-American Historical Society. No part of this publication, except in the case of brief quotations, may be reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the editor and, where appropriate, the original author(s). For more information, please email the Society at info@swedishamericanhist.org

BOOK REVIEWS
H. Arnold Barton. A F o l k Divided: Homeland Swedes and Swedish
A m e r i c a n s , 1 8 4 0 - 1 9 4 0 Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1994. xv + 403pp.
H. Arnold Barton has established a deserved reputation as the
premier interpreter of the Swedish experience in the homeland and
abroad. A F o l k D i v i d e d . . . is the work of a mature scholar with a
demonstrated ability to master a large body of knowledge and
produce an incisive work of synthesis and interpretation. The present
book may be read as a study of mentality as well as social and
cultural history.
Professor Barton identifies and analyzes the concept of two
separate cultures; one that developed among Swedes in Sweden, and
one that took shape among Swedes in America. From the time of
separation these two cultures over time, from generation to genera­tion,
evolved in different directions. A recognition of ethnic cultures
as legitimate and meaningful expressions of a historical process is
essential to an understanding of a multicultural America. To be sure,
ethnicity may be regarded as a self-conscious and selective construct
of a common ethnic memory, and as such over a period of time
becomes a part of an assimilative strategy and the formation of a
distinct ethnic identity acceptable to the dominant cultural group; in
its final analysis ethnic cultures must thus consistently be approached
as a part of an American matrix where the homeland's modernization
does not constitute the norm against which these cultures are judged.
But the immigrants did not sever their connection with the
homeland; they had instead a need to justify their departure to
themselves and to those they left behind. Barton sees the dialogue
that ensued between homeland Swedes and Swedish Americans from
the early years of emigration in the 1840s and for a century of
overseas exodus thereafter as an assertion by Swedish Americans of
a rightful and unique place within the Swedish national community.
Some 1.2 million Swedes left for the United States during this period.
The extensive loss of citizens through a long period of emigration in
itself affected nearly every aspect of Swedish life. The opinions
expressed in the homeland toward the emigrated Swedes, in Barton's
view, influenced their adjustment and cultural development in the
57
new society. How a people divided by migration related and saw
each other while developing separate and ever more distant cultural
identities is a central focus of the study.
There is extensive documentation, but like most investigations
based on published or archival writing, it is mainly the observations
of an elite of journalists, clergymen, politicians, literary figures, and
academics-on both sides of the Atlantic that prevail. The immigrants
are viewed from the top, though this view is embellished with
reference to the more democratic America letters and evocative
quotations from ordinary Swedish Americans found in the writings
of observers. And, certainly, the transatlantic relationship and the
commentary changed through time; no consensus on basic issues
emerged, either in Sweden or in America, as the expressed opinions
were reflections of social class, cultural and political convictions, and
changing historical circumstances.
Barton begins with the Swedish imperial venture on the Delaware
River in 1638 as a prologue to the beginning of mass overseas
migration commencing in the 1840s. This new phenomenon created
astonishment and found both opponents and defenders; the unprece­dented
levels of the movement after the Civil War and the emergence
of a "Swedish America" with its complement of ethnic institutions
generated a painful focus on the social conditions at home that
produced it. Swedish visitors to the immigrant community on the
other hand were pleased to note the high regard in which their
former compatriots apparently were held, but might also be aware of
the personal cost of emigration in the heavy labor exacted in order to
succeed.
A Swedish-American identity evolved that in cultural terms owed
much to Sweden and in civic and political matters to America.
Swedish Americans' long-time loyalty to the Republican Party is an
example of the latter circumstance. The pioneer Swedish-American
newspaperman John Enander promoted the imagery and rhetoric of
the Old Norse heritage, which came to pervade Swedish cultural life
and provided a salient ethnic imagery for a persistent Swedish-Amer­ican
identity. Barton dwells on the attempts by a more self-confident
and culturally aware Sweden to stem the tide of emigration in the
early part of this century, in particular the report of the Swedish
Emigration Commission of 1913 and the influential concluding
volume by its director, Gustav Sundberg, on the Swedish national
character (Det svenska f o l k l y n n e t ) , which moves beyond economic
causative arguments in explaining emigration and discovers a
fundamental cause in the Swedish folk character: "an uncritical
admiration for what is foreign and exotic, lack of national sentiment,
58
envy toward his own countrymen, and feeling for nature rather than
for people." (159)
Swedish America reached its zenith during the two first decades
of this century, manifested in religious as well as secular cultural and
organizational efforts. The years between the two world wars initially
witnessed a new rally around Swedish-American interests following
the intolerant nativism during World War I, though the general
development was one of the cultural loss in the ethnic community.
Eloquent appeals for the preservation of the Swedish language were
of no avail. Professor Vilhelm Lundström might be right in assuming
that few Swedes knew or cared enough about cultural Swedish
America to feel very strongly about its passing, and, indeed,
demographic change led to Americanization as the Great Depression
undermined the basis for Swedish-American institutions. The
outward signs of a Swedish-American identity became less substan­tive
and more symbolic.
A F o l k D i v i d e d . . . is a remarkably innovative work on a Swedish
cultural presence in America, and the love-hate relationship between
Swedes and Swedish-Americans, as Barton defines it, with broad
application to all peoples divided by migration. But it is much more.
In its widest perspective it has universal relevance as a study of
America itself, which as a nation of immigrants symbolizes a move
toward modernization or "Americanization," if you will, in a world
that reluctantly is becoming increasingly one.
ODD S. LOVOLL
ST. OLAF COLLEGE
Ingvar Henricson & Hans Lindblad. Tur och retur A m e r i k a : Utvandrare
som forändrade Sverige (Stockholm, Sweden: Fischer & Co., 1995). 298
pages.
Hans Lindblad, a long-time member of the Swedish parliament,
is notable as the originator of the 150th anniversary celebration of
Swedish immigration to America, observed on both sides of the
Atlantic during 1996. Since Lindblad is an admirer of American
enterprise and a champion of grassroots movements in Sweden, it is
fitting that (with fellow Gävle resident Ingvar Henricson) he should
publish the present volume, a testimony to the close ties between
Sweden and the United States.
Rather than emphasizing Sweden's impact on the United States,
the authors concentrate on the important role played by Swedish
59